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Customize cards

03/20/2018

10 minutes to read

In this article

VSTS | TFS 2018 | TFS 2017 | TFS 2015

Note

Reordering cards requires TFS 2015 or later version.

While many work tracking views show up as lists—such as your backlogs and queries—board views display cards. Information rich cards not only provide at-a-glance info of interest to you and your team, they also provide a way for you to update a field without opening the work item. And, with style rules, you can highlight those work items with select colors based on the criteria you set.

Each card corresponds to a work item which you use to share information, track status, and assign work.

In this example, the bug work item type (WIT) shows all the core fields, three additional fields, and tags. Also, To make severity 1 bugs stand out, a styling rule has been added to cause the card to display as yellow.

In the card shown below, the following customizations have been set for the bug work item type (WIT):

Show all core fields: ID, Assigned To, Story Points, Tags

Show three additional fields: State, Changed By, and Changed Date

Apply tag colors

Apply styling rule to display bugs with Severity=1 as yellow and bold and underline the Title field

Note

You can customize a work item type which is different then customizing the card displayed on the Kanban board or taskboard. You customize a WIT by adding fields, changing the workflow, adding custom rules and more. You can also add custom work item types and custom backlog levels. For details, see Customize an inheritance process.

Note

You can customize a work item type which is different then customizing the card displayed on the Kanban board or taskboard. You customize a WIT by adding fields, changing the workflow, adding custom rules and more. You can also add custom work item types and custom backlog levels. For details, see Customize the On-premises XML process model.

You can either increase or simplify the information that displays on your cards. It all depends on what's of interest to your team. Does your team like to refer to work items by their ID? Do they want to see estimates? Do they want to highlight work items according to set criteria? Or, will just the bare bones of title and assignment suffice?

Your best bet is to show fields on cards based on what your team frequently refers to or updates when using the Kanban and task boards. Also, add fields with information that you can use to filter the board. If you're new to working with these tools, see Kanban basics and Sprint planning.

Add fields and update them from the board

Using the board views provides you with quick and easy ways to update work items as work progresses. Making daily or frequent updates helps everyone on your team stay in sync with what's been done and what needs doing next.

To update status of a work item, you simply drag-and-drop cards to a different column. To change the order or stack ranking of a work item, you drag a card up or down within a column.

For example, on the Kanban board, moving the card from Analyze to Develop updates the corresponding State field. In this case, the State field updates from Approved to Committed.

Another handy feature is to simply update a field without having to open the work item. You can update most fields shown on the card. Here we reassign a requirement.

This quick update feature is particularly useful when you need to update a number of work items at once. For example, you can add estimates for backlog items on the Kanban board or update remaining work on the task board.

To change the title, click the pencil icon in the upper-right corner. To add tags, double-click the work item to open it. And, just a reminder, you can't change the IDs for a work work item, not from the card and not from within the form.

You can edit a value in a field you add to a card, unless it's a read-only field, such as the Change By and Changed Date fields. You can also customize the cards that appear on the Kanban board for features and epics. You follow similar steps, however you start from the corresponding portfolio backlog.

Change how cards display on the task board

Scrum teams use the task board to burn down work and report on progress during daily standups. Your task board shows cards that correspond to both requirements and tasks. If you want bugs to appear on the task board, change your team settings for show bugs on the backlogs and boards.

You change the way cards display on the task board the same way you change the Kanban cards display. Only here, you start from the task board.

Just as before, choose the WIT you want to customize, and then checkmark or select the options you want.

TFS 2015.1 options:TFS 2015 options:

Repeat this step for each WIT you want to change. Don't be surprised if the options change when you click on a different WIT. For example, Show Remaining Work only applies to tasks and perhaps bugs, but not to PBIs or requirements.

To add a field to a card, click the add field icon to select a field from the drop-down menu.

Add style rules to highlight work items with color

To cause a card on the Kanban board to change color based on criteria you specify, open Styles. Add a styling rule and set the criteria for the rule.

All clauses are considered AND clauses, grouping clauses isn't supported

Card rules apply to all work items that meet the rule criteria

Rule color applies to work items based on the order in which rules are listed. If you add more than one style rule, make sure that you move them in the order of most importance. Simply drag them into the order you want them applied.

You can quickly enable and disable a style rule

To highlight work items on the task board, open Styles from the task board Settings and add a styling rule.Here we add a Stale tasks rule which highlights tasks that haven't changed in the last five days.

Add color to your tags

To add color to Kanban cards, open Tag colors and select a tag and the color you want it to display.

Requires TFS 2015.1 or later version.

If tags don't display on the cards, open Fields and make sure that you've checked Show Tags.

Annotations

With the Kanban board, you gain a rich set of tools and a rich set of customization options. Annotations provide visual cues about work items, indicating the number of tasks or tests that have been defined for that work item. Click an annotation to expand the set or gain more information.

As shown in the following examples, the Task and Test annotations indicate that two each of tasks and tests have been defined for the work item. If you find that there are some features you're not using, you can disable them from the Annotations tab.

Enable or disable an annotation

If you're not a team admin, get added as one. Only team and project admins can set team settings.

From the Annotations tab, check those annotations that you want enabled. For example, to enable tasks but disable tests, check the following boxes.

The setting you choose applies to all active Kanban boards for your team, i.e., backlog, features, and epics.

Configure inline tests

You can control the test plan under which inline tests you add through the Kanban board are created. You can choose to create a new test plan for each new test that you add, or add all new tests to a selected test plan going forward.

To open, click the gear icon from your team's Kanban board.

If you're not a team admin, get added as one. Only team and project admins can set team settings.

From the Tests tab, choose the option you want. You must enable the Test annotation feature in order to configure tests. To select a test plan, click the actions icon and select one test plan from the query provided.

Save your changes.

Open the test plan, test suite from a card

From a card on the Kanban board, you can easily navigate to the underlying test plan and test suite under which the tests are created. Click the open icon to open another browser tab showing the Test hub and associated test plan and test suite that controls the inline tests.

Related articles

That's all there is to card customization. See these choices for further options to customize the Kanban and task board: